Over on the official Kindle forum, an Amazon staff member posted several notices about a so-called “Kindle Learning Academy” with this explanation describing what that is exactly:
The Kindle Learning academy (amazon.com/learningacademy/ereader) is a resource where Amazon Kindle E-reader and App users can come to learn more on how to setup, customize and engage with new features on their device. It includes how to videos on customizing their reading experience, adding and removing books, simple troubleshooting steps and more.
Curious, I clicked through to check it out, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. With a name like Kindle Learning Academy I guess I set my expectations a little too high. It’s basically just a glorified help page with a few videos and some links to help articles and newsletters. I don’t mean to downplay it—it’s a useful resource for Kindle users, mainly new Kindle users—but the academy isn’t well-funded, to say the least.
The first video covers some super basic stuff, like how to download ebooks, how to turn pages, open menus, highlight, create notes, look up words in the dictionary, and adjust the frontlight. Some of the other videos cover library organization (setting up collections, using sorting filters, etc) and troubleshooting (basically, how to restart your Kindle).
Considering Kindles are one the simplest devices to use, most people can probably figure those things out on their own, but there are a lot of features that Amazon doesn’t publicize.
There’s no mention of any of the advanced features, like adding custom fonts, taking screenshots, and using VoiceView to read ebooks (and the interface) aloud.
Maybe they’ll add more content down the line. It’s a good starting point for new Kindle users if nothing else, but they should really add a section covering all the unique note-related features for the Kindle Scribe.
I don’t know why but amazon website doesn’t work for me.
Do Kindles not give you this type of info anymore when you first register? Now Amazon expects people to go out of their way to a website for the information? No people will go to tiktok and youtube. Why? Because that’s now more likely than not where they first learned about Kindles and ebooks and ended up wanting one too.
The money and time directed to this Kindle Learning Academy would’ve been better used elsewhere. For example a Amazon branded BT page turner. Or fixing once and for all the yellow line issue on the new PW and CS.